INTRODUCTION 29
occurs, excepting in the last line but one,
only once in each line ; the effect is also helped
by the richer pattern of S's, giving depth to
the water,
It is interesting to see, in this poem, as
in the Song from Arcades, how Milton pro-
duces miracles of strangeness by the very
suggestion of age :
" By hoary Nereus3 wrinkled look/5
or
" And old soothsaying Glaucus* spell; "
or
" On old Lycseus, or Cyllene hoar."
The lovely opening, waving sound, like
that of the airs coming from some immortal
sea, produced by the length of " Lycseus "
and " Cyllene,J? and of the words " old sooth-
saying," explain a little—though how little__
the beauty and strangeness of those two
lines. But " By hoary Nereus3 wrinkled look "
does not open, it does not wave; it is secretive
like something shining beneath the water in,
a deep and glittering sea-cave. The beauty
of it is not to be explained. The sound of the
first verse in the Song from Comus varies
from sea-air to sea-air, from wave to wave